Only five years ago many representatives of Social-Democracy thought the slogan "Down with the Autocracy!" premature and unintelligible to the mass of the workers. These representatives were rightly classed as opportunists. It was explained to them again and again and finally made clear that they were lagging behind the movement, that they did not understand the tasks of the Party as vanguard of the class, as its leader and organiser, as the representative of the movement as a whole and of its fundamental and principal aims. These aims might be overshadowed for a time by the day-to-day routine, but they should never lose their significance as the guiding star of the fighting proletariat.

    Now the time has come when the flames of revolution have spread throughout the land, and when even the most sceptical have come to believe in the inevitable overthrow of the autocracy in tho near future. But Social-Democracy, as if by some irony of history, has to deal once more with precisely the same reactionary and opportunist attempts to drag the movement back, to play down its tasks, and to obscure its slogans. Polemics with the proponents of such attempts become the task of the day, and (contrary to the opinion of the very many who dislike intra-Party polemics) acquire tremendous practical importance. For the nearer we get to realising our immediate political tasks, the greater is the need to have an absolutely clear understanding of those tasks and the more harmful is all ambiguity, all reticence and mental inconclusiveness on this question.

    And yet mental inconclusiveness is by no means a rare thing among the Social-Democrats of the new Iskra or (what is practically the same) the Rabocheye Dyelo camp. Down

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with the Autocracy! -- everyone agrees with this, not only all Social-Democrats, but all democrats, even all liberals if one is to believe their current declarations. But what does it mean ? How is this overthrow of the present government to take place? Who is to convene the Constituent Assembly, which even the Osvobozhdeniye people (see issue No. 67 of Osvobozhdeniye ) are now prepared to advance as their slogan including the demand for universal, direct, and equal suffrage? Precisely what should constitute the real guarantee that the elections to such an assembly will be free and will express the interests of the whole people?

    He who fails to give a clear and definite answer to these questions does not grasp the meaning of the slogan "Down with the Autocracy". And these questions inevitably bring us to the question of the provisional revolutionary government; it is not difficult to understand that really free, popular elections to a Constituent Assembly, fully guaranteeing truly universal, equal, and direct suffrage by secret ballot, are not only improbable, but actually impossible under the autocracy. And if we are in earnest in putting forward a practical demand for the immediate overthrow of the autocratic government, we must be clear in our minds as to precisely what other government we want to replace the one that is to be overthrown. In other words, what do we think should be the attitude of the Social-Democrats towards a provisional revolutionary government?

    On this question the opportunists of present-day Social-Democracy, viz., the new-Iskrists, are dragging the Party back just as strenuously as the Rabocheye Dyelo-ists did five years ago on the question of political struggle in general. Their reactionary views on this point are fully elaborated in Martynov's pamphlet Two Dictatorships, which Iskra, No. 84, approved and recommended in a special review, and to which we have repeatedly called our readers' attention.

    At the outset of his pamphlet Martynov tries to frighten us with the following grim prospect: If a strong, revolutionary Social-Democratic organisation could "time and carry out the general armed uprising of the people" against the autocracy, as Lenin dreamed, "is it not obvious that the general will of the people would on the morrow after the

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revolution designate precisely this party as the provisional government? Is it not obvious that the people would entrust the immediate fate of the revolution precisely to this party, and to no other?"

    Engels points to the danger of failure on the part of the leaders of the proletariat to understand the non-proletarian character of the revolution, but our sage Martynov infers from this the danger that the leaders of the proletariat, who, by their programme, their tactics (i.e., their entire propaganda and agitation), and their organisation, have separated themselves from the revolutionary democrats, will play a leading part in establishing the democratic republic. Engels sees the danger in the leader's confounding of the pseudo-socialist with the really democratic character of the revolution, while our sage Martynov infers from this the danger that the proletariat, together with the peasantry, may consciously assume the dictatorship in the establishment of the democratic republic, the last form of bourgeois domination and the best form for the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Engels sees the danger in the false, deceptive position of saying one thing and doing another, of promising the domination of one class and actually ensuring that of another. Engels sees the irrevocable political doom consequent upon such a false position, while our sage Martynov deduces the danger that the bourgeois adherents of democracy will not permit the proletariat and the peasantry to secure a really democratic republic. Our sage Martynov cannot for the life of him understand that such a doom, the doom of the leader of the proletariat, the doom of thousands of proletarians in the struggle for a truly democratic republic, would well be a physical doom, but not, however, a political doom; on the contrary, it would be a momentous political victory of the proletariat, a momentous achievement of its hegemony in the struggle for liberty. Engels speaks of the political doom of one who unconsciously strays from the path of his own class to that of an alien class, while our sage Martynov, reverently (quoting Engels, speaks of the doom of one who goes further and further along the sure road of his own class.

    The difference between the point of view of revolutionary Social-Democracy and that of tail-ism is glaringly obvious. Martynov and the new Iskra shrink from the task which the proletariat, together with the peasantry, is called upon

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to shoulder -- the task of the most radical democratic revolution; they shrink from the Social-Democratic leadership and of this revolution and thus surrender, albeit unwittingly, the interests of the proletariat into the hands of the bourgeois democrats. From Marx's correct idea that we must prepare, not a government party, but an opposition party of the future, Martynov draws the conclusion that we must form a tail-ist opposition to the present revolution. This is what his political wisdom adds up to. His line of reasoning, which we strongly advise the reader to ponder, is as follows:

    What is Martynov's muddle-headedness due to? To the fact that he confounds democratic revolution with socialist revolution; that he overlooks the role of the intermediate stratum of the people lying between the "bourgeoisie" and the "proletariat" (the petty-bourgeois masses of the urban and rural poor, the "semi-proletarians", the semi-proprietors); and that he fails to understand the true meaning of our minimum programme. Martynov has heard that it is wrong for a socialist to participate in a bourgeois Cabinet (when the proletariat is struggling for the socialist revolution), and he hastens to "understand" this as meaning that we should not participate with the revolutionary bourgeois democrats in the democratic revolution and in the dictatorship that is essential for the full accomplishment of such a revolution. Martynov read our minimum programme, but he missed the fact that the strict distinction it draws between transformations that can be carried out in a bourgeois society and socialist transformations is not merely booklore but is of the most vital, practical significance; he missed the fact that in a revolutionary period this programme must be immediately tested and applied in practice. It did not occur to him that rejecting the idea of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship in the period of the autocracy's downfall is tantamount to renouncing the fulfilment of our minimum programme. Indeed, let us but consider all the economic and political transformations formulated in that programme -- the demand for the republic, for arming the people, for the separation of the Church from the State, for full democratic liberties, and for decisive economic reforms. Is it not clear that these transformations cannot possibly be brought about in a bourgeois society without the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the lower classes? Is it not clear that it is not the proletariat alone, as distinct from the "bourgeoisie", that is referred to here, but the "lower classes", which are the active motive force of every democratic revolution? These classes are the proletariat plus the scores of millions of urban and rural poor whose conditions of existence are petty-bourgeois. Without a doubt, very many representatives of these masses belong to the bourgeoisie. But

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    Such dreams, of course, are strange and alien to the philistines of the new Iskra and to that "master of men's minds", our good dogmatist Martynov. They fear the full achievement of our minimum programme through the revolutionary dictatorship of the simple, common people. They are afraid for their own political consciousness, afraid of losing the book knowledge they have learned by rote (but not assimilated), afraid that they may not be able to distinguish the correct and bold steps of the democratic transformations from the adventurous leaps of non-class, Narodnik socialism or of anarchism. Their philistine souls warn them with good reason that in a rapid onward march it is more difficult to distinguish the right path and quickly to solve the new and complex problems than in the routine of small-scale, everyday work; therefore, they mutter instinctively: Away, away! Let this cup of revolutionary-democratic dictatorship pass from me! It's as much as our life is worth! Gentlemen, better "go slow, with timid zigzags".

    Small wonder that Parvus, who had so generously supported the new-Iskrists as long as it was a question chiefly of co-opting the most venerable and the most deserving, finally began to feel very uncomfortable in this stagnant company. Small wonder, too, that he began more and more to feel the taedium vitae, life weariness, in this company. In the end he rebelled. He did not stop at defending the slogan "Organise the revolution", which had frightened the new Iskra to death; he did not limit himself to writing manifestos, which Iskra published as separate leaflets, carefully avoiding all mention of the name of the Social-Democratic

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is given, much is demanded. It would be most dangerous at present for Parvus to compromise his correct position by his own imprudence. Among the least imprudent is the following sentence in his preface to Trotsky's pamphlet: "If we wish to keep the revolutionary proletariat apart from the other political currents, we must learn to stand ideologically at the head of the revolutionary movement [this is correct], to be more revolutionary than anyone else." This is incorrect. That is to say, it is incorrect, if the statement is taken in the general sense in which it is expressed by Parvus; it is incorrect from the point of view of the reader to whom this preface is something standing by itself, apart from Martynov and the new-Iskrists, whom Parvus does not mention. If we examine this statement dialectically, i.e., relatively, concretely, in all its aspects, and not after the manner of those literary jockeys, who, even many years after, snatch separate sentences from some single work and distort their meaning, it will become clear that Parvus directs the assertion expressly against tail-ism, to which extent he is right (compare particularly his subsequent words: "If we lag behind revolutionary development", etc.). But the reader cannot have in mind only tail-enders, since there are others besides tail-enders among the dangerous friends of the revolution in the camp of the revolutionaries -- there are the "Socialists-Revolutionaries"; there are people like the Nadezhdins, who are swept along by the tide of events and are helpless in the face of revolutionary phrases; or those who are guided by instinct rather than by a revolutionary outlook (like Gapon). These Parvus forgot; he forgot them because his presentation, the development of his thoughts, was not free, but was hampered by the pleasant memory of the very Martynovism against which he seeks to warn the reader. Parvus' exposition is not sufficiently concrete because he does not consider the totality of the various revolutionary currents in Russia, which are inevitable in the epoch of democratic revolution and which naturally reflect the still unstratified classes of society in such an epoch. At such a time, revolutionary-democratic programmes are quite naturally veiled in vague, even reactionary, socialist ideas concealed behind revolutionary phrases (to wit, the Socialists-Revolutionaries and Nadezhdin, who, it seems, changed only his

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label when he went over from the "revolutionary socialists" to the new Iskra ). Under such circumstances we, the Social Democrats, never can and never will advance the slogan "Be more revolutionary than anyone else". We shall not even try to keep up with the revolutionariness of a democrat who is detached from his class basis, who has a weakness for fine phrases and flaunts catchwords and cheap slogans (especially in agrarian matters). On the contrary, we will always be critical of such revolutionariness; we will expose the real meaning of words, the real content of idealised great events; and we will teach the need for a sober evaluation of the classes and shadings within the classes, even in the hottest situations of the revolution.

    Equally incorrect, for the same reason, are Parvus' statements that "the revolutionary provisional government in Russia will be a government of working-class democracy", that "if the Social-Democrats are at the head of the revolutionary movement of the Russian proletariat, this government will be a Social-Democratic government", that the Social-Democratic provisional government "will be an integral government with a Social-Democratic majority". This is impossible, unless we speak of fortuitous, transient episodes, and not of a revolutionary dictatorship that will be at all durable and capable of leaving its mark in history. This is impossible, because only a revolutionary dictatorship supported by the vast majority of the people can be at all durable (not absolutely, of course, but relatively). The Russian proletariat, however, is at present a minority of the population in Russia. It can become the great, overwhelming majority only if it combines with the mass of semi-proletarians, semi-proprietors, i.e., with the mass of the petty-bourgeois urban and rural poor. Such a composition of the social basis of the possible and desirable revolutionary-democratic dictatorship will, of course, affect the composition of the revolutionary government and inevitably lead to the participation, or even predominance, within it of the most heterogeneous representatives of revolutionary democracy. It would be extremely harmful to entertain any illusions on this score. If that windbag Trotsky now writes (unfortunately, side by side with Parvus) that "a Father Gapon could appear only once", that "there is no room for a second

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Gapon", he does so simply because he is a windbag. If there were no room in Russia for a second Gapon, there would be no room for a truly "great", consummated democratic revolution. To become great, to evoke 1789-93, not 1848-50, and to surpass those years, it must rouse the vast masses to active life, to heroic efforts, to "fundamental historic creativeness"; it must raise them out of frightful ignorance, unparalleled oppression, incredible backwardness, and abysmal dullness. The revolution is already raising them and will raise them completely; the government itself is facilitating the process by its desperate resistance. But, of course, there can be no question of a mature political consciousness, of a Social-Democratic consciousness of these masses or their numerous "native" popular leaders or even "muzhik" leaders. They cannot become Social-Democrats at once without first passing a number of revolutionary tests, not only because of their ignorance (revolution, we repeat, enlightens with marvellous speed), but because their class position is not proletarian, because the objective logic of historical development confronts them at the present time with the tasks, not of a socialist, but of a democratic revolution.

    In this revolution, the revolutionary proletariat will participate with the utmost energy, sweeping aside the miserable tail-ism of some and the revolutionary phrases of others. It will bring class definiteness and consciousness into the dizzying whirlwind of events, and march on intrepidly and unswervingly, not fearing, but fervently desiring, the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, fighting for the republic and for complete republican liberties, fighting for substantial economic reforms, in order to create for itself a truly large arena, an arena worthy of the twentieth century, in which to carry on the struggle for socialism.

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